


to the clear northern skies

by stormwarnings



Category: Chronicles of Narnia - All Media Types
Genre: A Long Conversation, Character Study, Friendship, Gen, Kinda, Mountain Love, OCs - Freeform, Spare Oom, also i had no clue what to title it, this is very short and quick
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-31
Updated: 2021-01-31
Packaged: 2021-03-17 12:20:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,690
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29100162
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stormwarnings/pseuds/stormwarnings
Summary: Queen Lucy is running with the younglings of Dawn’s father tribe, among the grass and the rocks. High King Peter and King Edmund ride with Dawn’s mother tribe up through the mountain passes, in search of the summer pastures where once many years ago, they took the herds during the warmer months. And Queen Susan stands next to Dawn and looks out over this Narnia that is very different from the one she has known, with their hardiness and their impermanence.“Would you tell me about your people?” Queen Susan asks Dawn.
Relationships: Susan Pevensie & Original Female Character(s)





	to the clear northern skies

**Author's Note:**

> welp this is actually for a network event from november?? rip my life getting the better of me but hey at least theres this hopefully theres no typos im reallyyyy tired

_To the clear northern skies_ , Aslan said, at the coronation of the Kings and Queens of old. _To the clear northern skies, I give you High King Peter, the Magnificent._

Dawn thought the coronation magnificent. The Kings and Queens themselves are quite nice too, she thinks, but their magnificence is slightly diminished by the fact that they are, all of them, at least a head shorter than her.

“You’re Dawnbreak, yes?” Queen Susan asks her one day, six months into this new age. She wears a linen gown of pale blue, and there are flowers woven in her dark hair. In the wind of the summer on the hill under the sun she may look young, but she looks every bit a Queen. Though Dawn will not tell anyone this, she thinks this girl the most magnificent of them all.

Dawn shifts her hooves, a nervous habit, and yanks at the leather bracers on her arms. They’re threaded with red and gold, the colors of Narnia, as is the leather breastplate she wears. They remind her of the impossibility of this life she is now living – ancient prophecies walking and singing, stories come to life. “Yes, m’lady,” Dawn replies.

Queen Susan looks at her with a small smile. “Is that what you would like to be called?”

“I often go by Dawn, m’lady.”

“I see.”

Dawn glances over, and then twitches her head forward as she realizes Queen Susan is looking back. She is a few years younger than Dawn, she must be, because High King Peter has only just come of age and so has Dawn, and centaur ages are not quite the same as human ages. But Dawn is not very old at all and neither are they, and still they are in charge, and still they led a battle, and Dawn believes in Aslan (of course she does, what kind of question is that) but sometimes it is hard to trust in a being that would send children to war.

“Dawn, then,” Queen Susan says.

“Yes, m’lady.”

Queen Susan sighs and wraps her arms around her chest; the dress does not look overly thick, certainly not thick enough for mountain air. “Is it always this lovely here?”

Dawn answers honestly. “I wouldn’t know. This is my first summer, too.”

Queen Susan blinks. She turns, and looks out. “Well, Dawn. Your home is very beautiful.”

 _To the radiant southern sun_ , Aslan had said at the coronation. _I give you Queen Susan._

Dawn had been assigned to the royal guard by Oreius and her mother Proserphina, a representative of the north. The first few months of Susan and her siblings’ reign was spent in fair Cair Paravel, establishing connections and power, and so Dawn had been there too. Queen Susan had been at home amongst the sunny gardens and the marble pillars and the turquoise sea. But she is at home here too, beyond the Fords of Beruna, beyond the Owlwood and the fields upon which they finally defeated the Witch. In the hills before the mountains, Queen Susan stands silhouetted against the sky and the clouds. She is a gentle Queen, and a smart one. But now with a bow on a back and a horn at her waist she sees the wildness, and she finds beauty in that too.

“You’re a very nice Queen, m’lady,” Dawn says.

“I’m not sure that’s as much of a compliment as you think it is.”

“Well, you’re the best Queen I’ve ever known.”

Queen Susan laughs. “Thank you.”

Queen Lucy is running with the younglings of Dawn’s father tribe, among the grass and the rocks. High King Peter and King Edmund ride with Dawn’s mother tribe up through the mountain passes, in search of the summer pastures where once many years ago, they took the herds during the warmer months. And Queen Susan stands next to Dawn and looks out over this Narnia that is very different from the one she has known, with their hardiness and their impermanence.

“Would you tell me about your people?” Queen Susan asks. She glances down. “War isn’t really my business.”

Dawn says, politely, “It’s not ours either.”

Queen Susan turns then, and faces Dawn. Eyes fierce, the mountains rising like a crown behind her, against the darkening sky. She tilts her head back, and looks up at Dawn. “No?”

“If you’ll forgive me, m’lady – of _course_ not.”

Queen Susan has that small smile tugging at the corner of her lips. “And why not? You are nomadic, I have learned, unlike your folk to the far south. Oreius’s folk. You are nomadic because you are constantly at war with the giants.”

“Well, yes,” Dawn says. She tilts her head and stamps her hooves, forgetting for a moment that she stands next to a Queen. “Look, m’lady, you have to understand. My people are made to roam, and to run, but we were not the only ones up here. The giants have always been our bane, so far north. We tell stories of constant bickering over territory lines that were _ours_ , and the griffins and harpies that nested there and the Talking Animals, they help for Narnia is theirs too, but we are the primary fighters, for this is our home and it demands everything of us. The urge to survive is written into our swift feet, and – m’lady, wars are about survival, but survival is not always a war. Sometimes it is just survival. Sometimes it is just a way of life.”

“Narnia is a beautiful place,” Queen Susan replies, like she is repeating someone else’s words. “But it is a harsh place.”

“Yes,” Dawn says. “Sometimes its people must be harsh, too.”

Queen Susan nods. Then she says, “Dawn, I have learned about my siblings in these past few months. About why they were chosen to rule. But I still do not know why I was.”

Dawn looks at her. “M’lady?”

Queen Susan sighs. “Tell me about you, Dawn.”

Dawn blinks, then straightens her back. Her dappled grey coat comes from her mother’s people, and her size too – they are made for the mountains, hardy and sure, for scampering up rocks and over ice. Her strength and her brown skin comes from her father, who lived and loved the plains before the mountains, wide open skies and the sun that shone so harshly brilliant even on the coldest of days. “There are two tribes here, and I am the daughter of both of them.”

“I see,” Queen Susan replies. She waits, but Dawn isn’t sure what else to say. So Queen Susan prompts, “And why do you love Narnia? Just – tell me about _you_ , Dawn. I want to know about your people. I’m – I’m your Queen, Dawn. I want to know you.”

Dawn has already been ready to die for these rulers and the hope they had brought. Now Dawn thinks she is ready to live for them, too.

She takes Queen Susan’s shoulder and walks her forward to the edge of the rocky outcrop they’ve been standing on, points to the edges of the cliffs where they begin to rise up. “My mother tribe were once the ones who took the herds up the mountains in the summer. We did not do that in the winter, it was too risky, but we know the mountains very well, we always have. They are fearsome, and especially they were when the winter lasted so long, but they were lovely even as they were cruel.”

Queen Susan nods, like she knows this. She saw the Witch; most likely, she does.

“We watch the stars. Lots of things about our lives changed when the Witch came, but some did not. Our songs, and our stars, and – our stories. It is what we do, because we have long memories and we do not like to forget things. We tell stories, and we keep certain that they are told the same way. They will always be told the same way. Our mother’s mothers passed down the stories word by word, and our children’s children will tell them the same.”

Dawn walks then with Queen Susan as she asks, quite earnestly, how to tan the hides to make the tents. She speaks with the adults of the tribe, and Dawn stands back and smiles as those who raised her find themselves suddenly with a young Queen on their hands. And not only that, but a young Queen who has endless questions.

Eventually though, Queen Susan makes her way back to Dawn, who is standing with her hand on the sword at her waist and watching the storm move in.

“There is so much to learn, isn’t there?” The Queen sighs. “I’m not sure I’m going to make a very good Queen, Dawn.”

Dawn shrugs. “For what it means, m’lady, I think you make a very good Queen already.”

Someone shouts at the tiny yearlings who are milling around with the herds. There’s a low rumbling in the distance, and the clouds are pillars of charcoal and silver and deep blue. Dawn shivers with it, with the loveliness of it. Once, they had not thought they would see thunderstorms again. Once, they had not thought they would see Aslan again.

“It is so very big,” Queen Susan says quietly. “It makes me feel small.”

“It should,” Dawn replies. “That’s only right.”

“I think I’d like you to be part of my guard,” Queen Susan says.

Dawn starts, skittering sideways, then stills herself and yanks at her bracers. “You’d – _what_?”

“My guard.”

“Er, why? If you forgive me asking, m’lady?”

“I like you, Dawn. You’re honest.”

“I don’t know how to be anything else, m’lady.”

“Then I think this is the beginning of a very good friendship.”

Lightning arcs across the sky, and thunder rumbles. The younglings in the field below shriek and gallop towards it, the strangeness and the unfamiliarity, Queen Lucy running with them while her hair flutters back like wings. The green grass ripples, and Queen Susan’s dress does too. The air smells like rain, like summer.

No, Dawn thinks. This is the beginning of a very good age.

**Author's Note:**

> come find me at [tumblr](https://stormwarnings.tumblr.com/) :)


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